Ezra 5:15

5:3-17 While employed in God's work, we are under his special protection; his eye is upon us for good. This should keep us to our duty, and encourage us therein, when difficulties are ever so discouraging. The elders of the Jews gave the Samaritans an account of their proceedings. Let us learn hence, with meekness and fear, to give a reason of the hope that is in us; let us rightly understand, and then readily declare, what we do in God's service, and why we do it. And while in this world, we always shall have to confess, that our sins have provoked the wrath of God. All our sufferings spring from thence, and all our comforts from his unmerited mercy. However the work may seem to be hindered, yet the Lord Jesus Christ is carrying it on, his people are growing unto a holy temple in the Lord, for a habitation of God through the Spirit.

(15) Take these vessels, go, carry them . . . and let the house of God . . . —The three imperatives in this verse, without a copula, followed by a fourth, vividly express the feeling of the suppliants in the remembrance of the decree: thus we have another note of historical truth.

Verse 15. - Let the house of God be builded in his place. i.e. upon the old holy site - the place where Abraham offered his son Isaac, in a figure ( Hebrews 11:17-19 ), where the angel stood and stayed the pestilence in David s time ( 2 Samuel 24:16-18 ), and where "the glory of the Lord descended and filled the house" under Solomon ( 2 Chronicles 7:1 ). Ezra 5:15

13. Cyrus the king … made a decree—The Jews were perfectly warranted according to the principles of the Persian government to proceed with the building in virtue of Cyrus' edict. For everywhere a public decree is considered as remaining in force until it is revoked but the "laws of the Medes and Persians changed not" [Da 6:8, 12, 15].

Take these vessels, go forth, place them in the temple. For אלּה the Keri reads אל, according to 1 Chronicles 20:8 . אחת is imperat. Aphel of נחת. The three imperatives succeed each other without any copula in this rapid form of expression. The last sentence, "and let the house of God be built in its place," i.e., be rebuilt in its former place, gives the reason for the command to deposit the vessels in the temple at Jerusalem, i.e., in the house of God, which is to be rebuilt in its former place.

"And also let the vessels ... be restored, and brought again to the temple at Jerusalem, to their place, and (thou) shalt place them in the house of God." On the matter of this verse, comp. Ezra 1:7 and Ezra 5:14 . The sing. יהך (comp. Ezra 5:5 ) is distributive: it (each vessel) to its place. ותחת (comp. אחת Ezra 5:15 ) cannot, according to the sense, be third pers. fem. (neutr.), but only second pers. imperf. Aphel: thou shalt place. None but Sheshbazzar can be addressed ( Ezra 5:15 ), though he is not named in Ezra 6:3 . The historian is evidently not giving the contents of the document word for word, but only its essential matter; hence he infers the address to Sheshbazzar from the answer of the Jewish elders ( Ezra 5:15 ). Perhaps it was also remarked in the document, that Coresh caused the sacred vessels to be delivered to Sheshbazzar ( Ezra 1:8 ).